Regardless of the steps you take to correct color cast or white balance, or to set white and black points the principles remain the same. Lee shows you how to handle both routine image correction and touch up as well as dealing with difficult image problems.

This book is not a basics of Digital Photography or Photoshop book. It assumes you have a modest level of understanding of both. Lee starts out with a basic chapter describing the tools and technology but quickly moves into setting up Photoshop and creating a custom camera calibration. (Side note: You can download the beta camera profiles and editor from Adobe).

The book then covers some basic lighting and lighting equipment for portraits with example lighting setups.

The real meat of the book and what Lee explains so well begins with the chapter “The Color of Skin”. I have yet to see an image that can’t benefit from some attention being paid to color correction. The chapters on tone and contrast and image retouching pull the entire workflow together.

The remainder of the book then goes into altering focus, special effects, and color manipulation to really make your images special. Finally one of the most useful sections of all, “Preparing for Print” getting that image off the screen and onto paper. I’m always looking for ways to streamline the output side of the workflow and getting my prints to look as good as what I see onscreen.

The companion CD has the files that Lee works on so that you can follow along if you want.

Great book, I should have bought it earlier. You can buy it right here.

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